Dear Friends,

 

‘Having a lovely time – wish you were here’ may well be the message on the holiday post-cards coming through your letter-boxes this month. The holiday post-cards, together with the myriad photographs which are taken, and the souvenirs brought home as mementoes – all these are attempts to capture the magic moments of a holiday, when for a fleeting instant normal life is suspended and we see ourselves in a new light. (Have you ever, on a crowded summer beach, looked at the bodies all around you and imagined how different they will look in a week or two: men back in their grey suits or work clothes, women dressed for the office or the school run…..? But all that is forgotten in the freedom of scanty beach wear and the carefree spirit of holidays.)

 

We remember those special moments – the books we read; the people we met and may never see again, though we seemed to get on so well at the time; the memorable meals; the glass of wine as the sun goes down; the spectacular scenery; and the enlightened thinking we managed to do while able to stand back from the daily routine and re-assess our lives from a different perspective.  Sometimes these precious transitory moments can break through into the ordinariness of our normal lives, bringing with them a rare sense of wonder and delight; nothing will ever seem quite the same again. So we try to re-capture these magic moments of holiday; but somehow the wine never tastes as good as it did at the chateau, the straw hat from the market seems quite out of place in Nailsea, and the photos don’t convey how it really was.

 

In Wraxall church, we have a precious reminder of a special ‘transitory moment’ in the life of Jesus, the event known as ‘the Transfiguration’ (celebrated throughout the Church on 6^th August): it is the carved stone reredos behind the altar, and it depicts that story in the gospels  when for a moment the closest friends of Jesus suddenly saw him – literally - in a new light, and recognised him as the promised Messiah, the fulfilment of all their hopes. Life would never be the same again for them after this mountain-top experience; the moment of insight would give new meaning to all subsequent experiences. Not that they could capture the moment, any more than we can capture those special times on holiday. Those friends of Jesus had to go back down the mountain to face all the challenges that were waiting for them; we, too, have to return from holiday to all the usual demands of work and home. But those moments of wonder, if we absorb, treasure and reflect on them, will throw new light on the more dreary days, and may perhaps even remind us that God’s glory can flood into our lives unexpectedly – if we are open to that possibility.

 

The Welsh priest-poet R.S.Thomas describes such significant moments wonderfully, I think, in his poem ‘The Bright Field’:

 

            ‘I have seen the sun break through

            to illuminate a small field

            for a while, and gone my way

            and forgotten it. But that was the pearl

            of great price, the one field that had

            the treasure in it. I realise now

            that I must give all that I have

            to possess it. Life is not hurrying

            on to a receding future, nor hankering after

            an imagined past. It is the turning

            aside like Moses to the miracle

            of the lit bush, to a brightness

            that seemed as transitory as your youth

            once, but is the eternity that awaits you.’

 

Whether you are staying at home this summer, or going further afield, may the sun break through to light up a corner of your life, and may there be some special ‘moments of wonder’ to treasure – and to remind you that God’s glory is around us all the time, if only we will turn aside to see it.

 

With love,

 

Rosey